Immigration, talent and David Cameron's 'global race'. Can Britain be both open and closed?

If police forces are to improve, the minister says, they need to fish for talent in the biggest possible pool. Consider how Bank of England will soon be run by a non-Brit, Mr Green says: in the "global race" that David Cameron is always banging on about, talent trumps nationality.

The PM, incidentally, gets some stick for the “global race” thing, but it’s worth pondering why he is so fixated on Britain’s place in the world relative to emerging economies elsewhere.

To a degree, it’s the nature of the job: No 10 is a good vantage point to observe the economics and strategy on the largest scale. You deal with other heads of government, leaders of global organisations and the people who run the world’s biggest companies. When you keep such company, it’s inevitable that your Weltanschauung goes global. Mr Cameron, don’t forget, was the driving force behind the plan to recruit foreign police chiefs.

George Osborne, the closest thing the Coalition has to Davos Man, also gets the interconnected world thing; hence Mr Carney’s imminent arrival.

So, an open-minded, globalist ministry, determined to harvest the best of the best for Britain and ensure we remain in the leading pack in that over-used global race. Sounds spiffing, eh?

If only. Because the global Jekyll has a nationalist Hyde. Mr Cameron, of course, has promised to cut net immigration to the “tens of thousands” by 2015. To that end, the Coalition has instituted much more restrictive immigration rules than its predecessor.

Many Conservatives believe those curbs are popular; some believe they don’t go far enough. I suspect some of those who read this blog will have firm views too.

But consider for a second the way those new rules interact with Mr Cameron’s globalist ambitions. Consider the views of the people who run big British businesses.

The Government’s immigration cap is sending bright young engineering and science students straight into the arms of our economic rivals to compete with us from afar.

Britain must position itself as a hi-tech nation which craves the world’s brightest minds, so that we have the expertise to develop world-class goods. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has some of the right ideas, such as research and development tax credits and university partnerships.

But the policies of the Home Office towards foreign students send a conflicting message. Bright minds from abroad studying engineering at the Royal College of Art and at Britain’s other world-class universities have exciting careers ahead of them here. But changes to the visa rules mean that they may not be allowed to stay.

These are people who could boost the British economy, whether starting their own businesses or becoming business leaders of the future. We will miss out if we don’t actively encourage them to stay and make the most of their ideas.

It was written by Sir James Dyson, the chap who makes the cleaners, among other things. He’s far from alone in his views either: business leaders and universities alike are exasperated about the way the immigration cap is being applied. A number of Conservative ministers share their feelings.

The Home Office responds that the cap is, in fact, flexible, that companies can bring in any talented foreigners they want without restriction. And perhaps this is simply an implementation question. Perhaps the current rules just need to applied more smoothly and explained more widely.

Perhaps. But it’s hard not to wonder if there’s something more fundamental going on here, a basic contradiction between two of the Coalition’s imperatives. Can Britain simultaneously open itself up to the best of the global economy while closing its doors to a great many people from elsewhere in that global economy? Sooner or later, someone is going to have to try to square that circle.